My Friend Chris & Niagara Falls.

When I was starting out exploring a vegetarian diet, I turned to the internet for a lot of information. I found some great sites and dropped in on chat rooms and joined some Yahoo groups to be able to talk with like-minded people and to gain knowledge from their experiences. One person I met early on and connected with was my friend, Chris. He lives in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England. We've been internet friends for about 6 years now. We exchange e-mails, photos, Christmas cards, etc. In the late summer, he e-mailed to inform me that he had finalized plans for a 4 month multi-continent trip and Ontario was included in his plans and he wanted to meet up. He was staying in Toronto for a few days and wanted to go to Niagara Falls so I quickly volunteered to be his tour guide for the falls. He took the train from Toronto and Jim and I picked him up at the Burlington station. He booked a nice bed and breakfast nearby and stayed overnight.



This is Chris. (in mid-sentence. Love to get "action shots". HA!) He's 67 and was raised vegetarian and has been vegan since his 30's. He even eats raw about 60%. He said he tried a raw diet to help alleviate some joint pain and muscle stress and he felt so good after such a short time, that he tries to stick to it as much as he can.

Here's another "action shot". This time I'm in mid-sentence. This was actually taken at Niagara Falls. Since Blogger is being difficult lately, I don't seem to be able to upload a lot of photos on one post, so here's just a couple of the falls.



This one shows the Niagara River just as it's pouring over the edge. See the bridge in the background? That's United States. At one point, the two sides of the countries are so close, if it wasn't for the roar of the water, you could actually yell across and be heard.




We had talked on the phone and were making plans of things we could do. When you live somewhere, you forget what a tourist might like to see. One thing Jim suggested was going on Maid of the Mist and Chris seemed really keen on it. Maid of the Mist is the name of the boat that will take you right up as close to the falls as possible. Jim was born in Toronto and has spent all of his life in Southern Ontario and I've lived here for 21 years and neither one of us has ever done this boat ride. Jade was the only one who had been on before. She was the seasoned veteran of our group that day.

.

This is my favorite shot. You can really see how huge Niagara Falls is. This is the Canadian side called Horseshoe Falls. If you click on this link you can see a cool satellite image.




Niagara Falls isn't just for honeymooners. Dogs love to take in the sites too. This little guy was with his owner admiring the view. By his accented bark, I think he might have been from some borough of New York City. Brooklyn, the Bronx? I can't tell, but he seemed to be enjoying his vacation time.


Now is Chris comtemplating the wonder of Mother Nature and how some things in this world are so amazing they just make us feel so utterly small? Or was he having second thoughts about this boat trip?

Here we are suited up in our provided rain gear and ready to go!